Hi there :)
Here is a recap of my recent experience.
So lets explore this language, shall we?
Lets see what this type is: https://nim-lang.org/documentation.html
Wow, that is a lot of documentation. Lets start:
https://nim-lang.org/docs/lib.html
Oh, here is no type listed. Just some typeinfo. Anyways, its probably in some of the other categories:
https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html
Hnn, again this typeinfo. Isnt type supposed to be a fundamental part of the language?
https://nim-lang.org/docs/theindex.html
Looking for type with ctrl+f drives me crazy. I give up.
Did anybody of you anytime put yourself into the position of a complete beginner and went through that whole process?
I think the 1.0 release is a great opportunity to finally get your documentation in shape.
Otherwise, a seemingly super elegant language misses part of its audience group and that would be super sad.
With regards: ShalokShalom
P.S: The preview is not working here. Linux Firefox current on KaOS.
P.P.S: Also creating threads and visiting my own profile does not work until I confirm the email. It might be worth notifying this, instead of silently assuming people are doing so. There is no notification at any point, despite the fact that you let me write a thread.
Thanks a lot for your attention.
While reading your post for the first time I got the impression that you were looking for data type "Natural" -- I searches for Natural in docs and found it fast. But now I have the impression that you are looking for keyword "type"?
Keyword type is mentioned in tutorial 1, maybe not early enough.
Well, explaining something can be difficult if one does not know the audience.
The "type" keyword and the type section is in no way an invention of Nim, Pascal, Modula, Oberon have it.
Generally, when we explain something, we have to start somewhere. Whenever I read a science paper, there are a dozen of new terms for me, often I have to consult other papers to learn their meaning.
But of course Nim devs will continue to improve docs.
From https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html there is a way to reach https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#type-sections
No ideal, but most people start with reading a tutorial. Ever tried that?
You got the colon and parens in reverse order.
But I came to say here this. Once you know the consistent style of proc signatures, it's really easy to search for things.
The procs are defined as:
proc foo(arg1: Type1; ..): ReturnType =
So to search for procs returning that ReturnType, you just search for ): ReturnType.
The manual is not on top of the list of the documentation, as I said.
Despite the fact the documentation about type is quite sparse, I think it is important to provide the very fundamentals of the language on a prominent spot.
Opposed to hidden within a wall of unrelated content, also the search function in said manual does not provide any hint for this section, so zero chance to find the documentation for the literally first keyword used in an example on your own homepage.
Yeah, thats great.
I suggest a beginners guide.
What you think about it?